Lee Morizzo
South Cambs
Summary
Experienced finance professional focused on driving business performance and strategic financial planning with effective business partnering. Deliver cost-saving solutions and profit maximisation through prompt, insightful, value-adding analysis. Skilled in non-finance stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration to align financial goals with business objectives.
Overview
21
21
years of professional experience
15
15
years of post-secondary education
Work history
Interim Finance Business Partner
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
10.2024 - 07.2025
- Initial 4 month contract extended twice to 10 months, supporting the CEO, Finance Director and Executive Producers building the artistic plan theatre budget for financial year 2025-26. Meeting with Heads of departments across the business including Marketing, Scenery production, Costume, Music, Lighting and Sound to obtain box office targets and cost budgets in a detailed bottom-up budget approach. Responsible for maintaining the budget model, actioning updates and reporting on current position.
- Produced a detailed comparative tool for the CEO to compare budget numbers and key metrics vs prior year actuals and prior year budgets, in order to sense-check the 2025-26 plan. Key comparable metrics include contribution per performance, average box office income per performance, average production cost per show/theatre.
- Responsible for reporting the period end and year end management accounts (using Access Dimensions), budgeting and forecasting/planning for the Estates & Premises, Repairs & Maintenance, Engineering and IT divisions (incl CapEx). Meeting with senior stakeholders and presenting the financial position to discuss any changes to budget/forecast and carry out forward-looking scenario analysis required.
- Sales analysis on historic productions to forecast and project total box office revenue and timing by period, for each future production. Feeding this work into a cash flow forecast including the phasing of all cost payments.
Finance Business Partner
Nando’s UK
London
01.2013 - 04.2024
- Company Overview: £1.4bn annual turnover
- Acting as the main Finance link to Operations (directly supporting 2 Regional Ops Directors, 18 area managers and 180 restaurants) to improve financial performance of restaurants in terms of profitability and efficiency. Supporting the region with forward-looking, value-adding analysis, using historic trends and exploring links between financial and non-financial metrics. Also main support for the Property and Repairs & Maintenance divisions.
- Producing individual P&L budgets annually for all restaurants and maintaining an up-to-date monthly reforecast based on the latest information available.
- Reviewing period end P&L’s for accuracy of data and seeking to continuously improve period end processes with the wider Finance team. Updating and sending out key weekly and monthly financial reports, KPI dashboards and commentary to Operations/Senior Management and provide explanations for actual variances to budget.
- Presenting financial performance and insightful analysis at the monthly regional Ops meetings and half-yearly restaurant manager conferences. Focussing heavily on Sales, Labour and Gross Profit as key controllable drivers of profitability.
- EBITDA Modelling with the Property team for new restaurant openings, to ensure financial ROI within the required time period. Subsequent review of first year new opening performance and comparison against the initial sign-off model. Working with the Marketing team to track spend, predict and assess the return on ad hoc Marketing activity.
- Modelling the sales impact on restaurants for cannibalisation from new openings, refurbishments and closures and updating budgets to maintain a fair sales target.
- Enhancing the financial proficiency of non-financial stakeholders by creating the content and leading upskill sessions, aimed at various levels throughout the business.
- Running quarterly business review sessions with each area manager (together with HR and Marketing business partners), to focus on low performing restaurants and provide the support required to help them improve.
- Working on various key inter-departmental projects, such as being the Finance subject-matter expert for the new Anaplan finance system. Also, benchmarking restaurants on Labour and GP, to gain consistency across the estate. Created a periodic trending report for the COO and Ops Directors to spot early downward trends in performance at restaurant/area/regional level across key P&L lines.
Senior FP&A Analyst
Universal Pictures UK
London
01.2011 - 01.2013
- Part of a team of three, responsible for the full P&L for UK Home Entertainment releases including studio film, special interest and local acquisition titles.
- Forecasting, budgeting and monthly reporting of P&L to MD, senior management team and International Finance division, including explanations for actual vs target variances.
- Business partnering with Sales, Marketing and Operations teams to enable effecting monitoring of costs and revenues and obtain advanced views of potential risk or opportunities.
- Supporting the Financial Director by providing relevant analysis on key issues, also updating a KPI dashboard weekly for senior management team in order to facilitate decision-making. Including revenue, returns, marketing spend and manufacturing cost indicators.
- Preparation of individual title P&L’s and revisions based on actual performance, once released, to forecast likely revenue & profit. Forecasting of royalties and amortisation of advances for local acquisitions based on agreed contractual terms.
- Working closely with Financial Accounting team during month-end close on all accruals postings and investigation of variances to target. Also working together to streamline and continuously improve financial processes, enabling time savings and increased focus on value adding tasks.
Production Accountant
MTV Networks Europe
London
09.2008 - 01.2011
- Forecasting and budgeting for long form and short form programming including acquisitions and original programming. Meet with EVP Content and VP’s of Programming to analyse cost and amortisation impact of new shows, providing investment appraisals in conjunction with the Research team.
- Responsible for financial planning of Post Production, Studios and VT division and managing a direct report in an Assistant Analyst role.
- Analysing and forecasting the amortisation for MTV UK’s programming assets and reconciling the balance sheet to show the remaining net book values.
- Completion of 360 degree reviews on programmes, giving a snapshot of profitability and comparison to original investment appraisal.
- Compiling highly sensitive company valuations on potential mergers and acquisitions for Viacom, working closely with EVP and VP Finance. Using LRP information to build bespoke valuation models to arrive at low, base and high NPV’s.
- Month end tasks including: Preparation of accruals for Programming, Production and Consumer Research. Review of overhead spends for a number of departments. Balance sheet reconciliations. Variance analysis and detailed commentary for submission to NY head office.
Assistant Business Analyst, Business Analyst then Financial Analyst
Sony Music UK
London
05.2004 - 09.2008
- Providing efficient support and accurate forecasting for the Label Group including the preparation of annual budgets.
- Attended regular forecast meetings with Label MD, Label General Manager, Sales, Marketing and A&R and updated changes. Detailed review of forecast before submission to New York head office, including commentary for variance analysis. Preparation of monthly business review pack.
- Month end duties including: Preparation and review of accruals before posting (marketing/A&R/sales), cost centre spend reviews, review balance sheet reconciliations prepared by trainee analyst, flash report review and detailed investigation of variances to NY forecast, presentation of results to Head of Music Finance and VP Finance.
- Providing guidance to the Label by: Preparation of investment appraisals for new artist signings/renegotiations – liaising with Business Affairs on contract details, preparation of artist album profitability statements, advising marketing staff on financial implications of marketing plans.
- Managing a graduate Trainee Analyst to assist my duties.
Education
CIMA – Qualified -
01.2005 - 01.2009
B.Eng(Hons) - Mechanical Engineering
King’s College London
London 09.1999 - 07.2002
Bedford Modern School
Bedford 09.1991 - 07.1999
Skills
- CIMA Qualified (16 years post-qualified experience)
- Extensive knowledge of Microsoft Office tools, eg Excel, Word, PowerPoint
- Accomplished user of Workday, Access (Dimensions/Focal Point), Looker, SAP, JDE, Cognos, Khalix, Business Objects, ReportNet, Showcase, Concur and Sprinter
- Strong Business Partnering and FP&A experience
References
Available on request.
Hobbies and Interests
High interest in playing (and watching!) most sports, namely football, F1, rugby, tennis, cycling and going to the gym., Keen guitarist and budding music producer, having recently built a home recording studio.
Timeline
Interim Finance Business Partner
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
10.2024 - 07.2025
Finance Business Partner
Nando’s UK
01.2013 - 04.2024
Senior FP&A Analyst
Universal Pictures UK
01.2011 - 01.2013
Production Accountant
MTV Networks Europe
09.2008 - 01.2011
CIMA – Qualified -
01.2005 - 01.2009
Assistant Business Analyst, Business Analyst then Financial Analyst
Sony Music UK
05.2004 - 09.2008
B.Eng(Hons) - Mechanical Engineering
King’s College London
09.1999 - 07.2002
Bedford Modern School
09.1991 - 07.1999
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